I don't generally mind a company having a standard typography as part of its public image. But it irks me that Qualcomm's website delivers webfonts to ensure that every "Q" that appears anywhere on their site is rendered as their logo, even in body text where their logo is a significant distraction and harm to readability.
Why are tech companies making custom typefaces?
111–120 of 205 posts
Re: Why are tech companies making custom typefaces?
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
He may be bringing up the issue that it's perfectly legal to copy another font visually as long as you don't copy the font's data. (maybe something the author doesn't understand?)
How is that true? Can I copy a book or a painting visually as long as I don't copy its "data"?
Fonts and typefaces have unique copyright laws that are different from other forms of art/communication. I made a more detailed comment here:
Re: Why are tech companies making custom typefaces?
#113I don't understand how typeface licensing works. I normally just pay once and be done with it (essentially buying it) but this thread makes it sound like you need to pay by usage or something?
Re: Why are tech companies making custom typefaces?
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article contains an image [1] showing several tech-company-funded fonts side-by-side. The fonts have some differences, but I'd have to agree with you the changes are so subtle it's hard to believe they resulted from an attempt to make a _radically_ new typeface. [1] https://www.arun.is/blog/custom-typefaces/unique_typefaces_m...
I'd say Netflix Sans goes for the Circular look, Cereal tries to be a Proxima Nova, San Francisco is cross between Roboto and DIN and Roboto itself is a modern Univers.
Apple also has Menlo which is designed for Terminal-type CLI usage, looks a lot like Monaco which they used before that, dating back to the classic OS. Both have elements from Courier which (to me) has a slightly more sensible set of ascenders.
Re: Why are tech companies making custom typefaces?
#115The article didn't mention Arial from Microsoft all the way back in 1982! And it's probably one of the most used "Helvetica"-like (to avoid licensing) fonts ever.
Re: Why are tech companies making custom typefaces?
#116Re: Why are tech companies making custom typefaces?
#117I wouldn't know. I disable all custom typefaces.
Re: Why are tech companies making custom typefaces?
#118Are there not open source fonts? Seems like this ecosystem would be very large, since so many designers want to enhance their portfolio. Basically any font should be a commodity.
What am I missing?
Re: Why are tech companies making custom typefaces?
#119You can tell how old a car is by the extra words on the back under the name. "Fuel injected"? 1980's or 1990's. "Hybrid"? 2000's or 2010's.
Similarly, you can tell the era of computer software by what strange thing they decide they need to customize. We're in the era of "slight variants of Helvetica". (Nobody's asking for a Zapfino clone, strangely.) For whatever reason, fonts and logotypes are the axis on which everybody seems to need to compete today. And gratuitous 2D animation.
We already went through the "custom sound" phase, and it (mostly) went out of style, thankfully. Splash screens are also on the way out, since we no longer need a way to hide long loading times.
I wonder what's next. Gratuitous 3D animation? Custom smells? Plaids?
To be clear, I have no problem with nice fonts on my computer, but I think it's funny that everyone is so focused on showing off their creativity on this one very specific axis. You really can't think of any other possible ways to have functional style?
Re: Why are tech companies making custom typefaces?
#120> Developing a custom typeface can eliminate the recurring licensing fees that must be paid to foundries. IBM [4] and Netflix [5] claim to save millions of dollars per year by switching from Helvetica to IBM Plex and Gotham to Netflix Sans, respectively.
I wasn't aware that these common fonts charged royalties...